A Wolf, A Man, A Lie
by MiloOfTheKey
Summary: "Because you are a wolf," Raina assured him. "Hidden in a sheep's clothing." (Or: When someone with a vested interest in Maes Hughes continued existence decides that death isn't an option.) OFC/Fixit-style. 1st in series Golden Green.
1. A WOLF

He learned when he was two that crying when Daddy was home only resulted in beatings and the smell of sharp drinks all over his clothes.

He learned at three that Raina messed up at least once a night to keep the anger off him, burning the food or spilling milk on Daddy's reports so the punches go to her and not him.

He learned at four that Mommy drank more than Dad did, and that's why she never left her room, even when Raina screamed when her arm broke or when Dad broke all the plates in the house.

He learned at five that Mom and Dad didn't want him - hadn't planned him. That when he was in Mom's tummy it was Raina who hid the alcohol and cigarettes and made Mom take vitamins by sticking them in her food. Learned that Dad wasn't there when he was born in the bathtub, and it was Raina who had to help the birth. Raina who had to walk him to the hospital to get his birth certificate. Raina who chose his name.

_Maes_ she named him, with a small smile and careful lettering.

"Why?" Maes had asked her once, when she was tucking him into bed. "Why did you name me Maes?"

"Maes is the name of a man who loved so much he died for his family," Raina answered in her slow, even tone.

"I wouldn't die for _all_ my family," Maes wrinkled his nose. "Only for you."

"Family doesn't end with blood," Raina had just smiled. "And it doesn't have to start there either."

Maes learned at six that he had a middle name too: Conan. Raina said that it meant 'wolf.'

"Why?" Maes had asked again.

"Because you are a wolf," Raina assured him. "Hidden in a sheep's clothing."

* * *

When Maes was seven his father got shot in the right shoulder, and his nerves became so damaged that he lost nearly all movement in his right arm. Raina made him angry after he came home from the military hospital by breaking a bowl, and all his fingers did was twitch.

On his right hand, at least.

Both of his parents drinking got worse after that.

They never left bed, drinking and drinking and occasionally even eating what food Raina brought them every couple days. They were withering away and miserable, and it was scary to see even if Maes had long ago stopped loving them.

But their father's leave had ended.

"We need money," Raina said. And she sat down to write.

She wrote in a slightly sloppy hand, looking over Thomas Hughes' journal to mimic the pattern of his words and letters. She wrote of an ill wife and a simple daughter, of a son too young to be left alone. She plead for assignments that could be completed at home and sent by mail, as his shoulder was still too painful to travel. She spun words like magic and fabricated lies, and when she was done she signed with their father's name.

She sent it later that day.

And the brass were sympathetic. They sent manuscripts to be looked over and numbers to be confirmed. Sent research grants to be reviewed and reports to be summarized - because for all their father was a drunk and a bastard he was smart, good at his job.

And Raina did every bit of it, signing their father's name.

But looking at all those papers made Raina cry one day, for the first time that Maes could ever remember. She wouldn't say why, only shaking her head.

"I learned something, is all," She brushed off.

After that, she taught Maes. Taught him _everything_.

"Come here, little wolf," Raina would beckon him from where he was doing his homework on the table. "Read this report and tell me how I know he is lying."

And Maes would. He would walk over and lean on his tiptoes to squint at the letters on the page. He would read the words that he didn't know, occasionally grab a dictionary when he couldn't guess based off context, and then he would answer the best he could.

"If he fired his gun twice …" He might say, "Then why did he file a request for four bullets to rearm himself?"

"Good, Wolf," Raina would nod. "So what does that mean?"

Raina worked day and night completing each and every form, pacing their mailing as if she was a very busy husband and father was pressed for time. She recorded notes, things to remember. Looked over the files Thomas Hughes had kept, or slipped from work, and in between her labors and Maes school she taught him things.

She worked with a fever, and every moment she could she taught him.

"Never trust someone telling the truth, Wolf," Raina told him once. "Someone with power who tells you the truth is hiding something much worse."

She taught him math far more advanced than his teachers knew, and talked about science and _people_. How people lied and why, how to sway a room your way. What governments do, how they mess up and how they _lie_ \- and what kinds of governments you could overthrow and how.

And she never relented, never stopped or gave up. She gave and gave and learned more so she could give him more. She had never even gone to school, and she learned all she could to give him.

When he complained about not wanting to know about government or lying, she merely shook her head.

"Knowledge is power, Wolf," She would say, taking notes on a new correspondence in a carefully coded notebook. "But if that is the case, what is ignorance?"

"Weakness?" Maes guessed.

"And just as you can be exploited for your weaknesses," Raina nodded. "You can exploit someone else's."

"So never give them one, but always look for someone else's," He quoted an earlier lesson.

"So learn everything you can," She concluded, scratching away with her pen. "And don't let your enemies know how much you do."

* * *

Rubia Hughes died drinking herself to death on the third day after Maes turned eight. Warrant Officer Thomas Hughes died hours afterwards, out of some kind of sympathetic reaction, said Raina - but certainly not of grief.

"That man didn't have enough love in him to grieve," Raina scoffed, and then she rolled up her sleeves. Then she ordered him to make the biggest fire he could, and to not come upstairs no matter what.

The fire was blistering hot, and Maes was too afraid to follow his grim looking sister up the stairs to their parent's bedroom.

Hours passed - the fire had to be stoked and more logs piled on - before Raina came back down. She told him to take everything out of the room and to cover the furniture with sheets. As he complied, she oh-so-carefully sketched a circle on the chimney. Alchemy.

Maes liked alchemy, but he wasn't as good at it as Raina was.

Maes paused to watch as the fireplace extended, as the brick extended as a type of overhang, a hood. He moved slowly closer as Raina sketched another array full of symbols on a fire poker.

He watched as stained, bundled cloths were pushed into the fire and prodded with the poker - the array on it crackled and then made the flames rise higher.

The pile bloody clothes was large and then it was gone, and then buckets of a liquid too thick and dark to be water was hit with another circle until it was just rusty powder. And then that too was burned.

Maes knew what Raina was doing.

It was … he knew that they needed to stay alive. That's what Raina always said.

And Raina would do that for them.

Raina would do anything for them.

* * *

Raina composed a flawless letter, detailing the recent death of Rubia Hughes, 'his' wife, and how it was necessary to take over her family's business to honor her. How he wanted more time with his kids, and how he hadn't even come in to work for years and how it would be best to part ways. And how sincerely sorry 'he' was for his departure, and how he was glad to be of service to his country.

Maes marveled how all they got in response to that was a kindly worded letter and a check, the first of many from their late father's pension.

And then Raina's teaching came in ernest.

Maes learned how to lie, how to put up a front. How to see through half-truths and spin some of his own. How to get a room on your side, how to disarm a suspicious person.

"Remember," Raina clutched his hands, eyes locked on his - the same startling green. "Out there, you are Maes - you create who that is. In here, you are Wolf."

"Are we not the same?" Eight year old Maes/Wolf had asked, not understanding. "They're me."

"Maes is the part of you that follows _their _rules," Raina's mouth twisted at the word. "But Wolf is the part of you that is free."

"How do I make him? Maes, I mean." Raina's brother asked, squeezing his sister's hand.

"You distract," She said. "You put up a face, of ignorance and distraction and excitability and rule following and affability and geniality and being just another pretty face - and you create that out of yourself until he can stand alone."

"And that's it?"

"Almost. But it's not easy." She warned, "Be careful who you make yourself into, Wolf: you're the one who's going to have to live with him for the rest of your life."

* * *

Later he would be brave enough to ask.

"Who are your two sides?" Wolf asked, flipping through an alchemy textbook absentmindedly. "Raina and … who?"

"Rubia named me Lauren," His sister replied, lips twisting. "Lauren is slow, cannot speak well, and never had the brains to go to school. She can keep house, and that is all."

"And Raina?"

"Raina," Raina smiled - _really smiled_. "Raina teaches her little brother, who she raised herself, how to lie in a military dictatorship. Teaches him political theory and thought experiments and math and alchemy because one day he's going to need it. Raina tricked the military for years, disposed of two bodies at the age of twelve, and is actively plotting how to fake a death that already happened. _Raina_ is a force of _nature_."

Wolf bared a grin worthy of his namesake.

"I like Raina best."

"So do I, little Wolf," His sister agreed. "So do I."

* * *

"Be wary of people telling the truth," Raina warned him when he turned nine. "Your truth is not the same as other people's truth. And be careful, people telling the truth always have something to hide."

Wolf wondered what it meant that Raina never seemed to keep anything from him.

* * *

Wolf was the best liar in his class, because of Raina's teaching - and once Raina tested every bit of his mask with a fine scalpel, Lauren came out.

It was slow, integrating Lauren into Maes' life. Lauren began to stop by to pick him up from school, or lingered long enough to be seen by the parents of his classmates in the market.

Wolf was the best liar in his school, but Raina was in a whole class of her own. Lauren was slow, sweet, and never talked back. Lauren took ten minutes to pick out potatoes at the grocer's stall because she takes so long to examine and choose. Lauren smiled at everyone and started no conversations, only using small words and always handing over the wrong number of cenz, every time.

Raina pulled the strings, making people dance as Lauren made her way slowly through life. Maes' older sister was known as the sweet, stupid, but kind girl who tried her best to help her family even if she wasn't very good at it. People passed her sweets to eat and gently corrected how much she paid with. Local soldiers recognized her and walked her home, and the older ones kept flirting johns away from her.

Raina moved everyone like puppets on strings and Wolf was in _awe_.

"Why?" Wolf asked one day, bolstered by Raina's insistence that he question _everything _\- even, if not _especially_ \- her. "Why do we hide?"

"Because you and me, we know too much," Raina explained gently, correcting one of his lines on the array he was sketching. "And I am a woman - I would always be underestimated far more than you would be. So I use it."

"What's your goal?" Wolf asked after another moment, cleaning up the chalk and trying again. "Why do you work so hard?"

"Because one day you're going to need Lauren, in order to get me."

* * *

By the time Maes was ten, Wolf had developed the perfect way to not stand out. Do _almost _his best on any assignment, then learn it in depth and for real after the grades come back. Hide alchemy and science and political know how, because the military would snatch him up or kill him faster than he could say 'oops.'

Become known for an enthusiasm for photography, showing off photos of trees and dirt like a proud parent - over the top and with too much energy and making people uncomfortable when he comes too close with a pile of photos. Gush and rush about the unimportant, and only lose the energy when Lauren was around - instead going soft and slow, the accommodating younger brother helping his challenged older sister.

Lauren Hughes was five years older than Maes Hughes, and to the rest of Amestris it was Maes in charge.

If only they knew.

Raina and Wolf were sixteen and eleven when Maes dressed in his slightly dirtied school uniform and walked into the military police station near his house with a grim and worried frown.

And he made them _dance_.

Between babbling about how 'Mom and Dad went to East cuz Mom was sick - but that was _months _ago' and how 'Big-Sister was buying food with the money from her job' and how 'Dad was an officer too,' Maes plied them with photos of trees and Lauren cooking dinner and the little shop that Raina had opened bustling with customers.

Eventually, a search was sent - but no one stopped by the house because they had been fine for months so far.

Eventually, Lauren came in to sign emancipation and custody papers, because it had been 'months' and the East was full of danger and Thomas Hughes wasn't a Warrant Officer anymore.

The military didn't care, so the only shit they gave was making themselves unaccountable for any mishaps and canceling his pension.

Didn't matter. They hadn't touched a bit of it, putting it away into an account in the bank to save.

Wolf didn't know what Raina was saving for, but she was insistent.

And nothing changed. Lauren became the face of the shop, selling pottery and wares constructed by alchemy and carefully disguised as honest work. Maes became the enthusiastic boy who worked on his homework behind the counter and helped his Big Sister count out the right amount of change sometimes. They got regulars both out of pity and out of appreciation for their work, and Maes got grumpy when the baker's boys started flirting with Lauren.

Raina and Wolf laughed at their expense, even as Wolf used the tricks he learned to try and pry out of his sister if she really was interested.

Key word being _tried_. Raina knew his tricks - she _taught _him his tricks.

Raina only laughed.

* * *

When Wolf turned twelve, Raina gifted him with a weekend discussing the best way to stage a coup for various forms of government - and what kinds of governments would be most effective to install in their place.

When Maes turned twelve, Lauren gifted him with a camera with double the film capacity.

* * *

When Wolf turned thirteen, Raina quizzed him on alchemical theory and had him scribbling out arrays. Maes was no great talent at alchemy, but he could understand the theory well and it was always good to have an ace in his pocket. Once he proved he could scratch an array into a metal chair using a rusty nail, Raina gave him a sheath of throwing knives to strap to his back - with the sheath itself merely a thin layer of leather over an array covered skeleton of metal, enough to twist into dozens of knives to spare.

When Maes turned thirteen, Lauren got him lessons at a local dojo known for its vicious style - for those good enough to earn it, that is.

* * *

When Wolf turned fourteen, Raina taught him about codes, verbal and written. Taught him how to spot codes and how to begin to decode them, how to break down an alchemist's notes and how to spot arrays hidden in meaningless gibberish and lines.

When Maes turned fourteen, Lauren bought him a new pair of shoes - like the kind the rich men who courted her wore, and let him run the shop on his own.

* * *

When Wolf turned fifteen, Raina taught him how to cook, to clean. How to run a household and how to manage a budget. She taught him how to save money and how to invest it, how to keep his reputation as a businessman and how to build alliances and open negotiations.

When Maes turned fifteen, Lauren bought him lessons on how to drive a car and how to fix one.

* * *

When Wolf turned sixteen, Raina taught him in depth about the power of scapegoating, of victimizing. Described the power in making someone inferior and the sway over claiming superiority. She taught him how to spot the lies and decipher stereotypes about people, and how to see past what everyone 'always says.' She taught him that love was universal, that skin and hair and eyes had melatonin and pigment and how none of it mattered in the end. She talked about gender and sex and love and attraction and taught him to recognize when someone is a victim and when someone is only asking for pity.

When Maes turned sixteen, Lauren bought him a nice tie and a rusty old car.

* * *

When Wolf turned seventeen, he sat Raina down and told her he was going to join the military.

When Maes turned seventeen, Raina filled out all the forms he needed and only left the space for him to sign on the dotted line.

* * *

When Wolf turns eighteen, he realizes he may be in love with the shy girl that Lauren hired to work in the shop for when he left to join the Academy.

When Maes turns eighteen, he asks Gracia Bisset out on a date.

* * *

Maes first began to pay attention to Mustang because the alchemist could see his lies.

Not see _through_ his lies, of course. Only Raina could do that - and that's because Raina taught Wolf how to lie in the first place.

But the perfectly constructed facade that he puts forward, the _Maes Hughes_ that everyone sees, is not him any more than his shoes are.

Maes is a worn and familiar outer shell, but he's not flesh and blood any more than leather is. A faded imitation only, given structure and polished to a shine.

But Mustang is the first person to see just how much Maes keeps hidden, even if he doesn't know what is behind the mask. And that intrigues him just as much as the flame alchemy he pretends that he's not deconstructing in his head, and the slant of the man's shoulders that says _I belong here_ no matter how little Wolf can see he believes it.

They eye each other, steer clear even as they catalogue each and every move. Something tells Wolf not to underestimate the Flame Alchemist.

By the way the other man's eyes sharpen whenever Maes whips out a photo of his girlfriend or when he gushes about how good her pies are, he'd say that Mustang felt the same about him.

* * *

Maes turns nineteen in a warzone, surrounded by the stench of charred flesh and the torn earth, stained with the blood of red eyed children and white haired men and bronze skinned women.

Wolf turns nineteen in a warzone, and sees the Flame Alchemist as the face of what his sister had always striven for. Roy Mustang is the man that could make it to the top of the pyramid, and _fix_ their _stupid_, _genocidal _country. And Wolf is ready to put him there.

* * *

Maes feeds Roy bits of code, tests the other man. And Roy was brought up in a brothel, one that doubled as a hub for information brokers, so he caught on quick. Roy even as started to try and pick Maes apart too, trying to see how a shopkeeper with a knack for gathering intel would know how to speak without ever being heard.

Slowly they begin to talk. Commenting about Gracia and democracy in the same sentence, and about scuttlebutt and alliances in the same breath. And soon the sniper Maes has heard stories about and Wolf has a skill-based hard-on for, The Hawks Eye joined them too.

The young blonde woman reminded Wolf of Raina, with the look in her eyes speaking of death and determination and the fierce desire to protect.

* * *

Maes turned twenty the same week he was to be sent home, intel unneeded after all the Ishvallans were either too scared to fight back, too young, or just too dead.

Wolf turned twenty with two new allies, powerful allies, and working out a plan to put Roy in the Fuhrer's chair for Raina to look over.

* * *

When Wolf turned twenty-one, he finally began to leak more and more of himself into the time he spent with Gracia - and was enthused to find that the woman he loved had no problem adapting and accepting.

When Maes turned twenty-one, he started ranked as a Sergeant Major for his work in Ishval and began to become the most reputable upcoming Intel officer.

When he came home to his sister after a long day laboring in Central Command, Raina gave Wolf a slim, bulletproof vest carefully lined with blood packets and Lauren gave Maes the keys to his own apartment.

* * *

When Maes turned twenty-two he had perfected the coded correspondence between Roy and himself, finally reaching not only an ironclad alliance but a solid friendship. Roy and he discussed democracy and socialism and fascism and communism, and Roy soaked it up like a sponge while still prying as subtly as he could into just _how_ Maes knew so much about the revolutions and counter-revolutions of governments.

When Wolf turned twenty-two he edited the manuscript that Raina had written - looked over the book that Raina had written as the first crack in the wall. The beginning of the flood.

_A Perspective on Government_, Raina named it with a smirk, signing _Thomas R. Mason _on the byline.

And then, at twenty-two, he gathered the money that his sister had carefully hidden over the years and mailed it and the manuscript to a carefully scoped out publishing house with the payment for a rush order.

A month later Central Command finally caught on, sent out orders to collect and regulate and seize all the copies. Maes worked in earnest with the rest of Intel to try and track down the untraceable Thomas R. Mason, years of practice biting his tongue keeping his face clear of the amusement he was stamping down on.

No one suspected the hardworking and loyal soldier or his slow, uneducated sister.

Even as Roy sent a letter marvelling at how _similar_ Mason's ideas on government were to Maes' - and all Maes could say, displaying sincerity and honesty Roy that had learned to as genuine, that he didn't write it, and hadn't been involved in its conception.

Only, Maes didn't say, it's _execution_.

* * *

When Maes turned twenty-three, Gracia moved in with him and began to learn about the skills he pretended he didn't have.

When Wolf turned twenty-three, _A Perspective on Government_ was banned in all legal circles - pretty much guaranteeing a loyal and borderline cult following in less legal ones.

Raina and Wolf had toasted to that and Raina was already started on part two.

* * *

When Maes turned twenty-four, he realized that as a Captain he was forever a higher rank than Thomas Hughes ever had been, the bastard.

When Wolf turned twenty-four, he added a preface to Raina's new book _An Understanding of Power_ under the name _Rey W. Lawrence_.

Lauren mailed the manuscript that time, to a publishing house that had proved unafraid to circulate _A Perspective_ under the radar.

* * *

When Roy, ever connected and hyperaware, got his own copy of _An Understanding_ and read the preface, he called Maes up.

"Are you trying to say the same?" Roy asked cryptically, the accusation imbedded in a story about the stupidity of his current CO.

"I wouldn't say that," Maes answered back with a smirk he didn't have to hide.

"I want to meet him," Roy slipped in later that call, next to a comment about someone called Van Hohenheim.

"You know, maybe he's a woman!" Maes had suddenly exclaimed, channeling humor into theatrics. "No one can pin down what this guy looks like, after all."

Roy, the flirt, only became more insistent after that.

* * *

When Maes turned twenty-five, he was a Major and leading his own men in Intel and Roy was a Lieutenant Colonel with Hawkeye as his ever loyal shadow.

When Wolf turned twenty-five, he asked Gracia to marry him after he confessed exactly how divided a man he was - only to have her kiss him and whisper his names in his ear.

When Maes was twenty-five, his late birthday gift was a confession from Roy that he had been trying to hunt down and recruit alchemists to function under his command -

And he found two prepubescent boys instead of Van Hohenheim, each having suffered from attempting the taboo of human transmutation. Somehow, at least, they came out of it alive.

It was a gift he could've done without.

* * *

At some point in the months that passed, Lauren had Gracia watch the shop while she packed a bag, took the car keys, and left only a note for her brother.

Three days later, she returned with a car stuffed full of books and books and _books_ and a trunk with boxes of knick knacks and photos.

"Those boys were going to make a choice, and it was going to be the wrong one," Raina said cryptically, filling out the forms for a storage space purchase. "And one day, they're going to be thankful."

Maes may have the authority to compel pretty much any civilian and a large number of the military to follow his orders, but Wolf had no way to get Raina to answer properly.

He settled on not knowing - _for now_.

* * *

Roy first met Lauren essentially by accident, as Roy and Raina both report it. Roy was in town to visit Maes during their leave, and had a day to kill in Central before meeting up at The Bar.

The carefully obscured alchemical marks on popular wares was enough to get him in the door, and only once he was inside did he notice the shop's name - and more importantly, it's _symbol_.

"The Timber Wolf?" Roy had apparently read off once he stepped inside and saw the sign Lauren had carefully painted one day.

But his eyes were focused on a seldom used alchemical symbol used to represent stability - _safety_ \- painted in simplified blue strokes.

It was the kind of message only an alchemist would get - and only one that studied the older Xerxian styles, not the modern ones.

Most would write off as a crude caricature of a wolf, but Roy studied with the foremost expert in Flame Alchemy before he took the title himself. He knew how to read old symbology. Maes himself had realized the same, years ago, but never really got the answer as to _why_.

From how Raina told it, Roy had poked around and tried to figure out who put that symbol there while Lauren had been oblivious and confused the entire time. Roy eventually gave it up lest the other patrons take action against him, and had resolved to come back in uniform and with Maes in tow.

Lauren had called Wolf after Roy left, and when Maes met up with Roy that night he let himself laugh at the subtle nod to his sister's shop.

"You knew someone at that shop," Roy guessed, realizing that Maes' humor was real.

"That woman you tried to pry information out of?" Maes smirked, sipping at some high proof rotgut. "That was my sister."

It was amusing to see Roy's feet swept out from under him - didn't happen much to the Flame Alchemist these days.

"The … slow woman?" He clarified tentatively, mind racing. "Lauren?"

"She taught me lots, especially photography," Maes smiled cryptically, and the respect that carefully bloomed behind his friend and ally's eyes was satisfying - only Wolf had ever really known Raina's worth.

"She teach you your letters too?" Roy made the connection, "How to write?"

"She did."

"Maybe I should drop by _The Timber Wolf_ sometime," Roy mused with an entirely fake leer. "Meet her properly."

Wolf just _laughed_.

* * *

Maes is twenty-six when he marries Gracia, and Wolf is twenty-six when he 'allows' Roy and Lauren to meet.

He is under no illusion that if either of his most trusted had really wanted to meet, they would've by then.

Though with Roy as the best man and Lauren as maid of honor, keeping them apart was unreasonable … but part of him was worried, even if he doesn't know exactly _why_.

But the day is the best in Wolf's life. Gracia, the love of his life, walked down the aisle and took his name- and right before the officiant said 'you may kiss the bride' Gracia whispered in his ear:

"I do take Wolf Hughes as my husband," She barely breathed, and he was the happiest man in the world in that one instant.

Gracia and Wolf had their first dance, and when the second verse started Roy extended a hand to his sister.

Lauren danced and danced and smiled and nodded and gave a short, slow speech about love that had sympathetic glances sent her way and had Maes giving her a warm smile - and Roy hovered about her like a protective guardian.

What no one bar Gracia and Wolf - and probably Riza - understood was how they were more than just dancing with and around each other, Roy and Raina. How all the codes Roy had learned from Maes, all the knowledge and skills he picked up his whole life, were being put to the test.

_Convince me you're worth it - right here, right now._

From the glimpses Wolf got when he wasn't enraptured with his _wife_, Roy still had a lot to learn.

* * *

Maes is twenty-seven when Edward Elric becomes the youngest state alchemist and earns the title of Fullmetal.

Wolf is twenty-seven when his beautiful, perfect, intelligent, wonderful daughter is born.

Maes names her Elicia, and with Gracia's permission Wolf gives her the middle name of Regina - in honor of the real strength of within his sister.

He is twenty-seven when 'Rey W. Lawrence' publishes a book of his own, titled _The Scapegoat_.

Roy gets an advanced copy, and within two days of its publication the book is banned with the strictest of consequences if found in one's possession.

Roy hugs him extra tight the next time they meet, whispering 'thank you' and pressing their cheeks close together.

* * *

Maes hears from Roy one day that the Elric Brothers - kids, just _kids_ \- burned their house down just before Edward joined, with all of their possessions inside.

When Maes drops by Lauren's apartment to 'check on' her, Wolf decides that enough is enough.

"How do you know?" He demands, level with her and demanding in a way he has never been. "You knew those boys would burn their house down - that's why you took their books, their keepsakes. You knew I would become a soldier, that I would need to know everything you taught me. You _knew_ that I would try to overthrow the government."

Confronting Raina is dangerous and brash and more than just a little unreasonable and far fetched. But it's Raina and she could do and did do and _does _do things that defy explanation.

"I won't lie to you," Is all she said.

"When we were kids, you used alchemy to burn Thomas and Rubia to nothing," Wolf switches tactics. "Why?"

"Because I couldn't let them take you from me, split us apart."

"_Why?_"

"Because I do everything I do so you make it to thirty," Raina answered, sure and firm. "I realized that I doomed you. So you _will_ make it to thirty. And then forty, then fifty and sixty and to a hundred if I can manage it."

"When did you …?" He started to ask, studying her eyes - _their _eyes. "When did you decide I was worth more than your own ambitions, life?"

"You _are_ my ambition, my life," Raina corrected him, squeezing his hand. "Don't you forget that."

* * *

When Maes is twenty-eight he becomes a Lieutenant Colonel and finally has his own, _proper_, office.

When Wolf is twenty-eight he meets the Elric brothers, let them into his home, and tried to keep them both sheltered and informed - paradoxically - the best he can.

Wolf stays up late into the night, giving Al - who he can _feel_ the blood seal on - what little he can. He chats and comforts, telling stories embedded with lessons and anecdotes full of warnings. He gives him copies of _A Perspective_, _An Understanding_, and _The Scapegoat_ \- old and beaten and dirty copies - by asking him to sort through a box of books he had bought from a pawn shop but hadn't looked through yet.

When the younger, though larger, boy eventually read through them, Hughes paid no suspicion to his too-pointed questions, his posed hypothetical situations. Alphonse wasn't subtle, yet, but he would learn - he would have to.

Wolf taught the youngest Elric everything he could even as he taught him nothing, and thanked his lucky stars that it was Al and not Ed stuck in the armor. Ed didn't have the patience or the temperment to see the world through the eyes of Mason and Lawrence - of Raina and Wolf. The Fullmetal Alchemist could barely keep his head on straight when the military was involved as-is. Political theory, at this stage in the game, would hurt more than it would help.

* * *

Wolf is twenty-nine when he looks into the pattern of bloody deaths across the country, the truth behind the Philosopher's Stone echoing in the back of his mind.

Maes is twenty-nine when _something,_ that looked first like Second Lieutenant Maria Ross and then _his wife,_ pulls a gun on him and shoots him in a phone booth.

Maes "Wolf" Conan Hughes makes it to twenty-nine, and all the can think as he slumps back against the base of the phonebooth with blood pooling all around him is how _furious_ Raina was going to be.


	2. A MAN

Roy learned at two that his sisters worked, and sometimes after the men left they cried with bruises on their arms and faces and it made his anger _big_. But they were too small to stop the bad men and they needed the work, and Roy was too small too.

Roy learned at three that living in The Bar meant that the other kids on the street wouldn't play with him. No matter how much he wanted them to.

Roy learned at four that Madame Christmas was In Charge and that anyone with a brain listened to her. But sometimes it was the meanest people who were the dumbest, and didn't know how to follow the Rules in The Bar.

Roy learned at five that numbers didn't lie like people did. That science and numbers and _alchemy_ were rules that everyone had to follow, no matter what. And it was only when you broke the rules that someone got hurt. And Roy learned that all he really wanted was for no one to get hurt.

Roy learned at six that his last name was Roy Mustang, and that Roy meant 'king' and Mustang meant 'horse.'

He also learned that he didn't have any more names, like some of the kids on the street had. The names their mommies and daddies yelled when they got in trouble or needed to wash up for dinner.

"Why don't I have one too?" Roy had asked Madame Christmas when he plucked up the courage.

"If you want one so bad, choose your own," Is all she said, sipping at the tumbler in her hand.

Roy decided to wait - he wanted to pick a good one.

* * *

When Roy was seven he realized that other kids don't talk like he does.

Other kids don't know the periodic table or how to roll a cigarette or how to read really well. Other kids don't know how to tell when someone is lying because they're drunk or because they break the law or because they don't want to be mean, and other kids don't have sisters and Madame Christmases like he does.

And being different and small and not having blonde hair and bright eyes like everyone else meant that other kids decided to hurt him too. Like the mean men hurt Rebecca and Julia and Mary and Chloe all of his other sisters.

"If you're different, then learn to blend in," Madame Christmas told him, only vaguely sympathetic. "It's a big bad world out there, and Amestrian school children are only the beginning."

So Roy learned to walk and talk like they did. Used not too big words or and didn't talk about science and learned how to play like normal kids did. And it was _strange_.

He enjoyed it, he guessed, and it was nice to live like the kids down the street did …

But he missed writing equations and drawing arrays and playing cards with Madame Christmas and picking pockets with his sisters. He missed the things that made him different, and he finally asked Madame Christmas again what to do.

"I said learn to _blend in_, Boy," Madame had scoffed, eyebrows raised. "I never said change who you are. Make a mask, Roy-boy."

A mask.

That he could do.

* * *

By the time that Roy turned eight he realized that there was something really wrong with Amestris.

In Amestris, no one important listened to people like Madame Christmas or his sisters or the orphans that worked in the less nice part of town. In Amestris, unless you had power no one cared and no one listened and no one protected you. Ever - that was the rule.

Amestris was like The Bar: there was a pyramid. In The Bar, Madame Christmas was on top and his older sisters were close beneath her with some of the bartenders. Then there were the younger girls, the busboys, and then the patrons and johns.

But Amestris wasn't like The Bar because The Bar didn't have the strength to make people _obey_ the pyramid. Because sometimes the johns had more power than the girls, and sometimes patrons could even have more authority than _Madame Christmas._ The pyramid didn't stay like it should've, not in The Bar.

And Roy didn't know where he fell, in either pyramid.

He explained his dilemma to Madame Christmas in coded, snippets of phrases, and she just rolled her eyes.

"You're _outside_ the pyramid, Boy," She scoffed, for once blunt. "You have no real power, only perceived."

Amestris was a country where the pyramid was everything. The Fuhrer had all the power, and you had to be in the military to have any influence at all.

But it was the people outside the pyramid - like Roy and the johns and the military men that came in on their nights of - that were the most dangerous to the pyramid. They had enough power to affect people, but no one to hold them accountable.

Amestris didn't like people outside the pyramid.

So Roy had to either become so influential outside the pyramid of Amestris that he could protect his sisters … or he had to get as high in the pyramid as he could.

And in Amestris, that meant that Roy had to join the military.

* * *

Roy was nine when he decided that he was going to become a soldier.

Roy was ten when he decided that he was going to put off telling Madame Christmas that as long as humanly possible. Madame Christmas had no love for the military.

In the meantime, he did everything he could to get ready. He read books on history and politics and tactics and alchemy. Snuck in to watch the classes at local dojos and bribed some of the less savory of patrons at The Bar to teach him to fight in exchange for small alchemical tasks. He learned languages and codes and listened covertly as he flitted around The Bar.

If Roy was going to be a soldier, he was going to be the best soldier there was.

* * *

When Roy turned eleven, Madame Christmas gave him a thick tomb on alchemy with the brochure for a military prep class on tactics, fighting, and procedure. Swiftly followed by a stern talking to on trying to keep secrets.

Madame Christmas wasn't happy, but she knew that once her Roy-boy got started on something, he wasn't one to let it go.

Roy just hugged her and pushed back his relief.

* * *

By the time Roy turned twelve, he was top of his class and had recruiters sniffing around him, trying and for the most part failing to be subtle.

By the time Roy turned thirteen, he had several military contacts, both from The Bar and from his classes. That's how he met Major General Grumman.

When Roy turned fourteen, he drafted a letter requesting apprenticeship to Berthold Hawkeye, at Grumman's recommendation.

By fifteen, Roy hopped on a train and waved goodbye to The Bar, intent to get as high in the pyramid as he could.

* * *

Roy turned sixteen a month after his apprenticeship was terminated, Master Hawkeye none too pleased when he found out Roy's aspirations.

He had learned everything he could.

Roy turned seventeen when he thought 'fuck it' and got back on that same train to get the secret to flame alchemy from the crotchety old man.

Seventeen when Berthold Hawkeye died in his arms, succumbing to illness at last, and seventeen when Riza Hawkeye showed him the tattoo on her back.

He didn't know how much he would regret ever going back, back then.

* * *

Roy finished basic training when he was eighteen, and became the youngest state alchemist in history at eighteen and a half.

The _Flame Alchemist_ had a certain ring to it.

* * *

Roy was nineteen and halfway through his more advanced officer training - he didn't want anyone to think he got by on his title alone - when he realized the depth of Maes Hughes.

Roy wasn't even exactly looking for it, as a matter of fact. He was too focused on the upward slope, he had neglected to see who he was ascending with.

Maes Hughes was the best liar he had ever met. Better than Madame Christmas, better than Lieutenant General Grumman, better than _him_. And unlike with him or Madame Christmas or Grumman no one could tell what kind of wolf they let into their pen.

It was _fascinating_.

More so, even, because for all his lies Hughes exuded a surprisingly authentic level of care for those around him. Those not around him. Those in newspaper articles and distant stories, in gossip and lies. Hughes _cared_, and that was the one thing he never lied about.

Roy had to lie about what he really cared about to protect them. It made him wonder what Hughes was protecting if he was so open about the love he had for his fellow man.

And it is _that_, more than the mask the Sergeant wears, that makes him wary.

_"Never trust someone until you know what they're protecting."_

* * *

Roy turns twenty in a warzone, surrounded by the stench of charred flesh and the lingering feeling of disgust that never could leave him. Innocents - men women children _innocent_ \- dead by his hand. By the gift that Riza gave him, so he could protect his family.

He is protecting his family by killing countless others.

He's not worthy to call his sist- to call the people at The Bar 'family' anymore. They would be ashamed of him.

But he has never been more determined to make up the pyramid, make it to _the top_ \- because if he can't change this then every moment of his studying and efforts have been wasted.

And, he thinks, just maybe Hughes can help him get there.

* * *

Learning from Maes is every bit as satisfying as learning alchemy was, all those years ago (or maybe it was less, even if it felt like more). Maes teaches him codes and phrases and ways of twisting sentences and their meanings, and once Roy masters them -

Maes _knew_ things.

Maes knew about things he never considered - what other kinds of governments do, _are._ How alliances and rules and laws and controlling the media and propaganda all lead to something far more _dangerous_ than a few beat up whores.

It sickened him. And it made him wonder just _exactly_ who Maes was, to know so much about something a liar and a rogue like Roy had never even _thought_ about.

Because just as he learned about scapegoating and discrimination and prejudice and warmongering, he learned bits about where Maes came from.

He learned that Maes was a shopkeeper and the son of a Warrant Officer who retired due to injury. He was an orphan, like Roy, though later in life. He was a shutterbug and was completely in love with his girlfriend and that's all that Roy really believed from Maes' mask - and none of it really matched up.

But he did know that when he made it to the top, he wanted two people by his side. Riza Hawkeye, who gave him everything he had, and Maes Hughes, who could give him everything he needed.

* * *

Roy was sure that Riza didn't completely understand Maes' value. Didn't fully grasp the layers that the intel officer had. She, bright as she was, didn't live in the same level of subterfuge and borderline illegality that Maes and Roy did. Sure, she was the daughter of an alchemist - a damn paranoid one - but she had a lot to learn about seeing truth in lies in truth.

But, between Maes and Roy, they would get her up to scratch.

* * *

Roy turned twenty-one the same week he was to be sent home, flames unneeded after all the Ishvallans were either too scared to fight back, too young, or just too dead.

He went back to Central with a title as 'Hero' he didn't deserve, a post out East, and the smell of charred flesh following him wherever he went.

Maes wasn't coming with him … but at least Hawkeye was.

* * *

When Roy turned twenty-two, he had two people he could trust and less than ten he could tolerate. He got his own men and he trained them well, scouting for the like minded and the talented, the ones that were overlooked because they were young or brash or stiff or too smart or too kind for their own good.

The kind of people that would follow Roy into hell, and the hellfire he brought with him.

He was the youngest Lieutenant Colonel in history, and dammit he wasn't going to stop there.

* * *

When Roy turned twenty-three he celebrated with nightmares and a letter full of code disguised as birthday wishes. The years since the war between them had been full of talk tantamount to treason - if only not explicitly outlawed because no one had ever really gone so far as to comment on democracy and socialism and fascism and communism - and Roy and Maes traded ideas and debated concepts like they had been doing it all their lives.

Part of Roy was growing sure that, _somehow_, Maes actually _had_.

And every piece of intel and idea and thought experiment and hypothetical revolution was _invaluable_, because he would need all of it. To stage his revolution and to protect his from the next.

And Maes never said a peep on where he got it all from.

* * *

It was Madame Christmas, not Roy, who found the book first.

They hadn't talked for years, not since Roy became unworthy to call The Bar his home, but one day he wakes up to find a courier parcel dropped outside his shitty military apartment. One with the word '_Boy_' written on it in an achingly familiar hand.

He couldn't open it for two days. Nearly bit Fuery's head off before Hawkeye told him - in no uncertain terms - to get himself together or get a bullet to the knee.

_'Read it and use it,'_ Madame Christmas wrote on the inside cover. _'And if you have an ounce of sense, come home for a drink before your sisters mob East Command.'_

Short and blunt. Felt like home.

_A Perspective on Government_ by Thomas R. Mason.

It was _dangerous_. Like how Roy was dangerous - how _Maes_ was dangerous. And it was the kind of dangerous that was _very_ familiar.

Every concept Maes and he had discussed over the years, and even _more_, was within these pages in glaringly clear text. It was power, unimaginable power, and the name 'Mason' close to damming.

But a quote stood out:

_" It must be said, however, that as much as the change of government is inevitable, the war that may come with such a revolution is not. At least, not necessarily. War is the result of stupidity, whereas a quiet revolution is an act of genius. And furthermore, it must be noted that the people must not shy away from violence on principle alone, and treat violence as anathema to such a quiet revolution, as violence is as much an aspect of change as peace - all is one and one is all, and change would not exist without two sides to the coin."_

Those were the words of a genius. Of a madman. And, Roy could scarcely believe, of an _alchemist_ .

And as far as Roy knew,_ Maes Hughes was no alchemist._

And Maes, when written to, denied any involvement, and for all his lies … Roy believed him.

* * *

When Roy turned twenty-four, he went home to The Bar and sat down next to Madame Christmas and … had a drink.

He brought his copy of _A Perspective_ for inspection, battered and worn and covered in coded annotations in The Bar's style. It was met with Madame Christmas' quiet approval.

He started visiting more after that.

_A Perspective on Government_ was banned in all legal circles - pretty much guaranteeing a loyal and borderline cult following in less legal ones. One of Roy's many duties when working towards his redemption was to sit with the more politically minded staff of The Bar and break down exactly what the book was saying.

He had what may amount to an insider's perspective, after all.

* * *

When Roy turned twenty-five, he realized that he was a Lieutenant Colonel and a 'war hero' and the youngest state alchemist in history. He had men under his command and, other than Maes, he had more intimate knowledge about the revolution of a government than anyone in the entirety of Amestris.

Except for, it seemed, Thomas R. Mason and a new player on the field - _Rey W. Lawrence._

_An Understanding of Power_ was a book on lies and manipulation, from governments and lovers to criminals and soldiers - and this Rey W. Lawrence wrote a preface for it.

A quote stood out:

_'To grow up around lies can make words meaningless. To grow up when words are meaningless makes promises disposable. The only way to overcome the lies that we must tell, to survive and thrive, is to ensure that our genuine word is our bond. To speak plainly is a rarity, to be blunt a gift. _An Understanding _is such a gift, and although I may have not written it I still give it all the same. To each and every one of the people in this world who cannot believe another's words, but still decide to trust all the same.'_

'Rey' he called himself. Roy had to hold back a snort at that. It was a nod to him, he was sure, that Maes couldn't help but include.

* * *

"Are you trying to say the same?" Roy asked cryptically, wondering if Maes would try and deny his involvement yet again. No doubt with even more completely truthful loopholes.

"I wouldn't say that," Maes answered back with a smirk in his voice he didn't bother to hide.

"I want to meet him," Roy slipped in later, meaning both Mason and the ever elusive Van Hohenheim.

"You know, maybe he's a woman!" Maes had exclaimed, a joke and a layer of truth all at once. "No one can pin down what this guy looks like, after all."

_A woman who knew all that._

Roy may have fallen a bit in love at an idea like that.

* * *

When Roy turned twenty-six, he used a letter and some rumors to hunt down two talented alchemists in Rosembol, far east.

Instead he found two genii, foolish _children_ who lost everything to try and bring back their mother.

He left an offer to the elder - and hoped in equal measure that he would hurry on and grow up already, and that he would run while he still could.

* * *

Roy visited Maes partially on a whim, and partially to have a slightly less coded talk about who exactly Mason was. Due to timing issues, he found himself wandering around Central's more residential area when he spotted the wares.

Pots, pans, clay. Art and whimsical glass. Every piece of value and sturdy and still appealing to the eye.

And every piece made by a _very_ talented alchemist.

"The Timber Wolf?" Roy read aloud when he walked into the room, spotting the amaturely painted sign. And then his eyes locked on the symbol painted in a simplified manor underneath the careful lettering.

Stability and safety, an archaic symbol with considerable power, disguised as a simple caricature of a wolf drawn with blue paint.

Safe to say, that for a good minute contemplating the possibilities successfully distracted Roy from the gorgeous woman behind the register.

Warm skin, long black hair hanging in waves, and piercing green eyes. A simple dress and a simple figure.

But her eyes - oh her eyes were _sharp_ \- until suddenly they weren't, and Roy was left thinking that he imagined it.

* * *

_The Timber Wolf_ wasn't the place to stage an interrogation, and part of Roy had a feeling that the symbol wasn't for him. If it was, then someone would've come out of the woodwork to meet him the moment he walked in.

But then, he wondered, who would it be for?

Roy sat at the bar in The Bar, pondering the best way to bribe Maes into giving up some of his intel on _The Timber Wolf_. Maes was generous, sure, but he still liked no debts perceived between friends.

Roy typically greatly appreciated that gesture, but at times like this - when his brain went blank on what to offer his fellow soldier - he wished they could just do IOUs like normal people.

On the other hand, when had Roy ever been _normal?_

He was so distracted, he barely noticed when Maes sat down.

And Maes started to laugh the moment he mentioned wandering through the shopping district earlier that day.

"You knew someone at that shop," Roy spilled when he realized how truly genuine his humor was.

"That woman you tried to pry information out of?" Maes smirked at him, sipping at some of the disgustingly cheap killer booze Madame Christmas shoved at Roy every time he came by. "That was my sister."

_'I knew it.'_

He knew that those eyes were too sharp, that they saw too much and hid too well. But ...

"The … slow woman?" He asked, just to be sure. "Lauren?"

"She taught me lots, especially photography," Maes bared his teeth with the truth hidden well behind them, and even in the safest place for them to talk Maes is still protecting them with layered phrases.

"She teach you your letters too?" Roy couldn't help but joke, thinking of the books he alchemically hid behind his bathroom wall. "How to write?"

"She did."

"Maybe I should drop by _The Timber Wolf_ sometime," Roy joked with an entirely fake leer, even if he was seriously considering wooing a woman like that . "Meet her properly."

Maes just _laughed_.

* * *

Roy is twenty-seven when Maes finally makes an honest woman out of Gracia, and it was only at the rehearsal dinner that Maes ever allowed him and Lauren to meet - _properly meet._

Maes was under no illusion that if Roy had really wanted to - and, Roy suspected, if _Lauren_ had - then they would've met earlier. But loving and lying are both beasts of burden, and neither Maes nor Roy enjoyed allowing the two monsters to mix.

Even still, Maes still looked nervously at the two of them - as if he hadn't known what it would mean when he made them maid of honor and best man.

Maes is over the moon, and although only years of practice and experience tell Roy so, barely a lie nor a false word passed through the groom's lips the entire day.

That is, to say, the _groom's_ lips.

But _Lauren_ -

She was a _majesty_.

They began their game at the rehearsal dinner, began to trade words when they first met. They were both too good at telling lies and living lies to dive right in, at least not too deep. They bandied words for hours and Roy always felt a step or two behind.

The subterfuge only reached a shade of genuine when Roy extended a hand for Lauren to dance.

"May I ask you?" He smiled his charming smile, seeing the way he easily saw through the layers of his question. May I ask you to dance? May I ask you more? May I ask you about whatever I can between these layered words?

"If you are brave," Lauren replied, her speech slow and her words short - the perfect image of a less intelligent, well meaning sister of the groom.

It was _amazing_. She was where Maes had learned … _everything_ \- she was the most powerful person in the hall, alchemy be damned, and nothing that anyone could do or say would convince Roy otherwise.

Through the night all the codes that Roy had learned from Maes, all the knowledge and skills he picked up his whole life, were being put to the test.

_'Convince me you're worth it - right here, right now,'_ Her eyes seemed to laugh._ 'And then we'll see.'_

Roy still had a lot to learn.

They spoke of writing behind flowers, and treason behind family, of war behind friendships. And every time Lauren smiled, nodded, spoke a slow word - Roy couldn't help but step closer to her. To shield her. Because Lauren was everything that Roy needed. She was Riza, but more. Maes, but more . And the thought of having all three of them at his back when he made it to the top of the pyramid ... was too much to hope for.

And Lauren was incredibly, _horribly_, vulnerable.

The government he was in had it out for Thomas R. Mason - and they wouldn't hold out if they found her, or "Lawrence".

And any protection after today that Roy could give her would only draw danger near.

* * *

Roy is twenty-eight when Edward Elric becomes the youngest state alchemist and earns the title of Fullmetal.

He is twenty-eight when Rey W. Lawrence publishes a book of his own, titled _The Scapegoat_. When _Maes_ does - for him.

Roy gets an advanced copy by discreet courier, and it is only because he knew how much the previous two books changed his life for the better - giving him back his family, his hope - that he's able to get past the dedication. Past the lump of emotion choking him.

_'This book contains all the words I could never say aloud,'_ Rey W. Lawrence wrote. _'Because our government will not allow it. So allow me to be genuine: sometimes the heroes are the ones who suffer the most._

_'For a Hero with belief in the government - those whose job is to protect everyone - is the most tortured of all. Governments are never as we wish them to be, and Heros never can bask in their glory - knowing that the scapegoat lies in their grave because of them._

_'I dedicate this book to the Heros that are soaked in blood, and whose hearts are only still beating so there would never be another "Hero" again.'_

Within two days of its publication the book is banned with the strictest of consequences if found in one's possession. Roy alchemically, painstakingly makes a copy for The Bar and gives it to Madame Christmas behind the cover of an old cookbook the day it came out.

Sometimes books say all the apologies you never had the words for.

Madame Christmas ordered him to come by more often after that.

When Roy sees Maes again he can't help the atypical hug he gave his best friend - and when he whispers a simple thanks in his friends ear, he knew that Maes saw right to his core. As he always did.

* * *

When Roy is twenty-nine he becomes a Colonel and finally has his own, _proper_, office.

When Roy is twenty-nine the Elric brothers are under his command, and when the little rascals meet Maes it's all Roy can do to shove the boys at his friend and hope for the best.

Gracia and Maes always were ones to open their home to the broken - like Roy was.

And Maes always knew how to calm the storm raging inside young, powerful, traumatized alchemists like him - like those brothers.

Roy stays up late into the night, every night, trying to work out how to save the Brothers and help himself and his country in a way that wouldn't leave him with more guilt than he already had. That wouldn't make him like the people he was trying to overthrow.

He buys his wares from _The Timber Wolf_, and in the quiet moments in the store he and Lauren talk shop. About the military and the climate and the cost of knowledge. It was she who suggested that he kept them busy, away from Command, chasing leads so they wouldn't get stir crazy. Wouldn't rub up against the brass too much.

She always knew what to say.

And Roy realized after a couple months that he and _Raina_ … weren't talking just shop anymore.

* * *

Maes is thirty when there is a serial killer after alchemists and the Elric Brothers broke into an old research facility and Maes told him with coded words and a disgusted tone what exactly the Brothers had been hunting down all these years.

Roy is thirty when the operator tells him that he was getting an emergency call from an outside line, thirty when he picked up the phone and called out his friend's name.

Colonel Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist, who chose the Ishvallan name Ayuub when he was drunk and covered in the smell of the charred dead - for its meaning: repentance -

Roy Ayuub Mustang, who only ever wanted three people by his side while he climbed the pyramid, saved his people - all people -

Roy Ayuub Mustang heard through the phone line the sound of a gunshot, and the sound of his best friend's body hitting the ground


	3. A LIE

She didn't know when she realized that she knew things that she shouldn't've. Knew things that she never _learned_.

She Knew that the way that the man - who the woman insisted she call 'Daddy' - screamed and yelled and hit was _wrong_. Knew that the woman who called herself 'Mommy' putting up with it was _bad_. Knew that everything about this house and this life was _different_.

But different compared to _what_?

And she Knew, more than anything else, that her eyes – golden like fresh wheat and jewelry and distinct as all else – were _perfect, _like nothing else.

No matter what The Man and The Woman said about freaks and mutations and disgusting -

She loved them, her eyes. Even if she didn't know why.

They were all she had.

* * *

She counted days and nights and times she slept. She listened to the words they said and repeated them. But she wasn't learning, really. She knew their words and many others – she Remembered guttural sounds and flowing vowels and staccato beats –

She told herself stories in those staccato beats, and felt a little better at the comforting sound.

She told herself stories because no one else would.

Because what else could she do?

She wasn't cute, or adorable, or wonderful like babies were supposed to be. She wasn't charming or lovely or … well, anything. She was just the freak baby with too smart, golden eyes.

And The Man resented her for that.

* * *

She realized she had been counting days for over 400 nights before she understood that there would be no celebration. Not like she thought there should've been. A party to celebrate her birth … that was what people did, right?

Because she Remembered a house full of people, with hair like the sun and eyes to match, with black hair interspersed and blue eyes scattered. With loud shouting and good natured fighting and _love,_ so much love it was coming out of the _walls_ and –

There was none of that in this place.

And that same day, when she hummed herself a quiet tune recalled from wherever the things she Knew came from, she realized something: she didn't have a name.

Or if she did, she had never heard it.

She decided she wasn't going to love The Man and The Woman after that. She Knew enough that that was _wrong_.

(They were not Mom and Dad.)

And she didn't like things that were wrong. She had to _fix_ them.

* * *

By the time 882 nights had passed since she started counting, she forced herself to stop waiting to hopefully get a name, and just choose one herself. No one else was going to give her one.

But what to choose …

She found out, from overhearing The Man and The Woman that they were called Rubia and Thomas Hughes.

_Hughes. _

Maes Hughes was a good name. A hero's name. A _good _name.

But Maes was the name of a man, and May … sounded like someone else. She couldn't take those names any more than she could have a meaningless name.

(She didn't want to have a meaningless name. A person without a name was worthless, and if a name was going to give her worth it better be a _damn_ good one.)

She Knew that Thomas meant 'twin' while Rubia meant 'jewel.' Hughes meant 'son of Hugh,' a name which meant 'heart' or 'mind.'

Thomas Hughes was a twin of minds. Rubia Hughes was a jewel of the heart. And she …

Well, she was just her.

She had gold eyes she loved more than anything and she was too smart. She Knew things she shouldn't and she had love she wanted to give and no one to give it to.

She loved stew and tall glasses of milk and spicy foods, and she loved the feel of the wind on her face and sun on her neck.

And she loved the rain, when it came. The rain made everything hideous beautiful, even if only for a moment.

Rain … Raina. _Queen._

_The Queen of Minds_. No. The Queen of her _own Mind._

Knowledge is power.

And she was _teeming_ with knowledge.

_(All Knowledge comes with a price._

One she Knew, somehow, she had paid.)

* * *

Raina had counted 935 days when the argument happened.

"_Look _at her!" The bellow had come from downstairs, tuning her into an argument that sounded like it had already gained its wind. "We can't send her out there – we'd be disgraced!"

The Man. Talking about … talking about her. And her freak eyes.

"But she needs to," The Woman tried to feebly fight back, barely audible through the walls. "We can't keep her here."

"She's a brainless freak," The Man declared with finality. "There's something wrong with her _mind_."

The sound was too soft to carry after that.

'_Something wrong with her _mind.'

Not her mind. She was a Queen in it.

But she felt less sure of that every day.

* * *

The Woman drank more and more these days, and the Man worked more and more, too. Soon it was as if the house was a ghost house, and there was nothing there but her and the paint on the walls.

And the _books_.

Books felt like starting over. Like no one was judging her for anything but putting it down before she was finished. Books were a companion who she never had to fight for and … that was nice.

Raina figured that she Knew people, but … never really knew any. At least the heroes in books seemed like the kind of people who she could befriend. Kind of people she already Knew, already loved.

And then one day, she found mention of it. Just the slightest mention of –

_Alchemy._

* * *

She was careful, ever so careful, as she planned. A bit of chloroplasts here, a bit of gelatin there. Some salt and a handful of carbohydrates and silicon.

A precisely drawn circle. The spark of a transmutation.

And, with shaking fingers, she looked in the mirror and peeled back her eyelids, placing the covers over her beloved irises.

She blinked them into place, once, twice. They settled.

And in the mirror, her eyes were The Woman's bottle green. Her gold perfectly hidden.

Her eyes green, her hair black, the cast of her eyes vaguely Xingese.

She _hated _it, but she Knew that her eyes needed to be hidden.

(The Man and The Woman wouldn't even notice these days. They never looked at her, much less in her eyes.)

It felt like a secret, being kept hidden. Which was good, Raina figured. Because she thought it would feel like a lie.

Like everything else was.

_She _was a lie.

* * *

Raina had counted 1,584 days when The Woman announced that she was pregnant.

'_Shit.'_

She Knew that this was not the house for a child. That the drinking and The Man's anger and the lack of any love would kill any baby that wasn't her, that didn't _Know_ things like her.

She panicked. She -

_Had to save this baby_.

She stole some money from The Man's wallet and snuck out for the first time, keeping down and low as she picked through unfamiliar streets, passing unfamiliar sights.

Foregin but familiar. Like a book she reread after many years.

She had never left the house before … but she Knew what she needed.

She stole and bought in equal measure, books on babies and vitamins and baby clothes and food - days and weeks of stocking and tricking and bartering and pleading.

Months and months and _months_ of endless attention, work. Her tiny body pushed to its limits.

Then on a day when the Man was gone and the Woman was the size of a whale -

The baby came.

_The baby was the most beautiful thing Raina had ever seen._

He was red and squealing and shivering from the wet, and she had to use a pair of sewing shears to cut his umbilical cord but he was _beautiful_.

She saw that the Woman was not going to leave the tub, soaking in her own fluids and tears and dirty bathwater, and realized that it was really going to be down to her.

The baby had barely breathed its first breath and the responsibility for him fell on Raina. Had always and will always fall on her.

Fine. The Woman and The Man couldn't love them? _She would love enough for the world_.

And when one day the baby grew up, he would build a family just like the one she Remembered, with love coming out of the walls.

She swaddled him closely, holding him close and supporting his head. The day was warm enough and the sun high enough she didn't need a jacket as she trudged towards the hospital.

On the way, she thought on a name …

* * *

Maes was her world.

And an echo of a tale bounced around her mind as his exuberance, his smile. The way he never cried, would be all smiles right up until he became relentless and determined. He was …

He was like the hero that she named him for. The man who fought endlessly, who _changed_ things, right up until he died. The story she felt connected to, indebted to.

Raina remembered the story of his death clearly. A phone booth, a bullet. A friend on the other end of the line. A child and a wife left behind.

But her little Wolf wasn't going to die like that. Her little Wolf would watch his kids grow up.

But only after Raina watched him grow up, first. She was okay with that.

* * *

Maes turning one was rough. Because she knew, _Knew _what he deserved. Deserved kids brought in by tired but smiling parents, and a cake large enough to share. Photos and presents, new shirts and dirty trousers. Happiness and balloons and _love_ from people who were not obligated to give it, with arguments and thrown wrenches and alchemy sparking for entertainment and showmanship.

But Raina couldn't give Maes any of that.

But she could give him some things. She gave him stories, and smiles. Hugs and kisses, tiny loaves of sweet bread coated in honey.

The Man and The Woman didn't even realize the day.

* * *

By the time Raina had lived 3,000 days she had the system down.

She broke bowls and spilled milk, tripped and made a mess and stared The Man down. Because the first time that she saw the bruises marring her brother's perfect skin, she knew that it could never happen again.

Even though it did, because she was not strong enough.

* * *

Her little Wolf was curious.

Oh he was _so curious,_ and as much as she wanted to give him anything – _everything _– she couldn't. She didn't know everything, for one, and what she did Know –

It could get him killed.

She couldn't fix the oppressive fear she felt from the city as she crept down the streets at night, the wariness everyone walked with. But she needed to know _more._

So she stole books, creeped into bars and restaurants, lingered around vendors. She learned everything she could, every snippet carefully memorized. She learned about the military, the laws. She learned about prices and trade, who slept with who and what the wife was doing about it. She _learned_.

And when she came back as the sun began to rise, she _taught_.

(And when she discovered more books on Alchemy, she Remembered the things she Knew. About equivalent exchange and how equal is not equivalent and how Truth –

* * *

"Why?" Maes had asked her once, when she was tucking him into bed. "Why did you name me Maes?"

Raina paused, thinking. She had told her brother stories in the past. Ones she Knew, and ones she learned or made up. But … something held her back, a voice whispering for her to _stop_. Not to tell this story, not ever.

"Maes is the name of a man who loved so much he died for his family," Raina answered finally, settling for a partial truth.

"I wouldn't die for _all_ my family," Her little Wolf wrinkled his nose. "Only for you."

"Family doesn't end with blood," Raina just smiled, feeling the glow of love in her chest. "And it doesn't have to start there either."

(An echo of sharp amber eyes and white gloved hands and the smell of baked apple pies. Yes, Maes would have a family of his own, one day.)

* * *

When Raina had lived 4,562 days The Man got shot.

Because he was a drunk, who got sloppy on duty. Raina couldn't make herself believe that he didn't deserve it.

But the injury was a problem. The Man got meaner, yes, but he got smaller too. He didn't work, barely ate. He didn't lift a finger, only creating bedsores next to his complacent wife. The Woman was glad for an excuse never to get up again.

She could smell their filth from the hall.

But she hunkered down, steeled herself. Because The Man was injured before, before Maes. And he had work sent to the house that he completed as his knee healed.

Raina had been forging The Man's signature for years.

So she wrote a letter. Sent it. Packed bags for her and Maes to run, just in case, and kept an eye on the front walk every day waiting for soldiers – right up until a letter came in return.

And she got to work.

* * *

_Amestris. Fuhrer King Bradley. State Alchemists. Armstrong. Grumman. Hakuro. Briggs. Ishvalan. Central. East. _

Each word landed like a bullet. She was in a warzone, and each shot was a condemnation.

_She allowed her brother to live in a world like this._

No, not only. _She cursed her brother in a world like this._

Maes. _Maes Hughes._ Her Maes Hughes with glasses and oh so green eyes, and an intellect she could never hope to match and –

And Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes, with a bullet in his chest and Flame on the other end of the line and a daughter and wife left behind –

Maes Hughes, who died in that phone booth.

Her little Wolf.

_No._

_Not on my watch._

* * *

The Woman spoke to her for the first time … first time in years.

"I'm sorry …" The voice came from behind her as she was beginning to close the door, taking the half full tray with her. "Lauren, I'm _sorry."_

Raina … _Lauren_ looked back. Saw the vacant gleam of alcohol in her supposed mother's face, The Man laid passed out next to her.

She turned and walked away, not allowing herself to look back.

* * *

"Never trust someone telling the truth, Wolf," Raina told him once. "Someone with power who tells you the truth is hiding something much worse."

_Don't trust them, Wolf._ _Don't trust anyone._

No one except for the woman with the world in her sights and the man with the fire between his fingers.

(Not even her.)

* * *

She taught him math far more advanced than his teachers knew, and talked about science and _people_. How people lied and why, how to sway a room your way. What governments do, how they mess up and how they _lie_ \- and what kinds of governments you could overthrow and how –

Lessons. Lessons she never remembered learning but lessons all the same.

She gave him everything she Knew. Stories of dictatorships and revolutions and coups, where people went wrong and how politicians can destroy you. Stories of lies and blackmail and grabs for power, histories that she Knew she shouldn't know, or hadn't happened yet.

She gave them anyway.

And she learned everything she could, so she could give that to him, too.

"Knowledge is power, Wolf," She would tell him, knowing that every bit she gave him could save his life.

_And Knowledge comes with a price._

(And if sometimes she sat while Maes was at school, hunched over books on alchemy that read like science but felt like home – well, maybe she could admit (only to herself) that power wasn't the only thing she was after.)

* * *

The Woman died drinking herself to death after Raina had been alive for 4,845 days. The Man died hours afterwards, out of some kind of sympathetic reaction. But certainly not of grief.

The Man didn't have enough love in him to grieve.

But there were bodies upstairs and there was work to be done, so she rolled up her sleeves and told Maes to stay downstairs, to make a fire.

One day, he would see blood and bodies. In war. But not today, not when there was still part of her sweet brother who loved the people who should've been their parents.

She took a metal-backed hairbrush of The Woman's – _was _The Woman's – and sketched a careful transmutation circle on the ground. Made herself a knife sharp enough to cut bone.

Used The Man's leather jacket and thick boots to make buckets, reinforced with the carbon from their clothing.

And for her little Wolf, for the sake of holding them together, she set to work.

She bled, disarticulated, and disassembled The Man and The Woman who brought her into this godforsaken country, which was no great gift – but she did so quickly, efficiently. Like a sheep.

She tried to be kind. Because she did not love them, would not miss them. But she had to be grateful for them, not for her own life.

But because they brought her Maes.

When she burned what was left of them, she pictured a man with a kind smile and eyes like steel, fire between his fingers. Fire was a tool, and the first time she had ever really used it was to kill.

She thought she understood the man with the name of King a little more, after that.

* * *

Raina composed a flawless letter on the dead Man's behalf, detailing the recent death of Rubia Hughes. How it was necessary to take over her family's business to honor her. She spun lies of sugar and fat, honeyed and sweet scented – all to keep Maes. All to make the military stop caring.

The Man gave no one any reason to care about him.

The pension, when it arrived, she immediately got in hard money and put away.

She had plans for it.

And with no illusion of restraint, nothing to hold her back, she settled back and got to _work._

Forms filed under The Man's name to get a shop, get it furnished with shelves and wares. The permits and forms and paperwork needed to make it real, more to backdate it. An illusion after a number of weeks to rebrand it, introduce 'new management' to beat back any thoughts of it not existing before.

And Raina realized around the time that as she reached 5,000 days that what that actually meant is that she was now 13. She was bleeding monthly, and filling out her dresses, and when she put on a blonde wig and transmuted her contacts blue and added a high pair of heels she became another person; she became the manager of the shop, young in face but old in spirit.

And all that time she taught Maes everything she could. Lies and deception, acting and fabricating.

Even the things she wished she didn't have to.

"Remember," She clutched his hands, eyes locked on his. "Out there, you are Maes – you create who that is. In here, you are Wolf."

(She gave him the nickname before she realized how she had cursed him. The wolf in sheep's clothing. But now she saw that it was more than just a name.

Now, she might be able to use it to save him.)

"Are we not the same?" Her eight year old brother had asked, not understanding. "They're me."

"Maes is the part of you that follows _their _rules," She felt her mouth twist at the word, determination settling in her gut. "But Wolf is the part of you that is free."

"How do I make him? Maes, I mean." Her little Wolf asked, squeezing her hand.

"You distract," She said. "You put up a face, of ignorance and distraction and excitability and rule following and affability and geniality and being just another pretty face – and you create that out of yourself until he can stand alone."

_And you survive._

"And that's it?"

"Almost. But it's not easy." She warned, "Be careful who you make yourself into, Wolf: you're the one who's going to have to live with him for the rest of your life."

_And a long one it shall be._

* * *

Later he was brave enough to ask.

"Who are your two sides?" Wolf asked her, flipping through an alchemy textbook absentmindedly next to her. "Raina and … who?"

She had almost forgotten, the name croaked out through the putrid air.

_Lauren._ She had never used it. She supposed she better start.

"Rubia named me Lauren," His sister replied, lips twisting. "Lauren is slow, cannot speak well, and never had the brains to go to school. She can keep house, and that is all."

_Not that she was ever given a chance to do more._ Raina _had to fight for more. All because of a pair of golden eyes._

(Eyes that she had never let him see.)

"And Raina?"

"Raina," Raina smiled – _really smiled, _pushing back her guilt. "Raina teaches her little brother, who she raised herself, how to lie in a military dictatorship. Teaches him political theory and thought experiments and math and alchemy because one day he's going to need it. Raina tricked the military for years, disposed of two bodies at the age of twelve, and is actively plotting how to fake a death that already happened. _Raina_ is a force of _nature_."

_Raina was going to save her little Wolf._

The Queen and her Wolf.

Father could go fuck himself.

"I like Raina best."

"So do I, little Wolf," She bared her teeth. "So do I."

* * *

"Be wary of people telling the truth," Raina warned him when he turned nine. "Your truth is not the same as other people's truth. And be careful, people telling the truth always have something to hide."

_Truth_ was a great Gate and endless white and a sickening smile.

And Raina was fearful – of Truth … and of the truth.

And when she closed her eyes, she could see the great gate looming above her as hundreds of black hands lunged for her neck.

* * *

Wolf was the best liar in his class, because of her teachings – and once she tested every bit of his mask with a fine scalpel, Lauren came out.

Because _Lauren_ was the steel fist in the silk gloves that Envy, and that fucking Dwarf, would _never_ see coming. She had to be.

It was slow, but worth it. Being seen in public, taking a more public place in the shop. Playing up the mental challenges and amping up her sweetness. The damsel in distress, the sweet dumb girl. The one no one ever suspected.

(She could picture the laughs that she Knew would've come at the image of her a helpless damsel – in another life.)

And slowly, she remembered what it was like to … to _live_ again, even if just for a little while.

"Why?" Wolf asked one day, bolstered by her insistence that he question _everything _\- even her. "Why do we hide?"

How do you tell a child that the world is wrong?

"Because you and me, we know too much," Raina explained gently, correcting one of the lines on his array. "And I am a woman – I would always be underestimated far more than you would be. So I use it."

"What's your goal?" Wolf asked after another moment, cleaning up the chalk and trying again. "Why do you work so hard?"

How do you tell your brother he was going to die?

"Because one day you're going to need Lauren, in order to get me."

* * *

The Maes Hughes she Knew of, his skills in Intel and subterfuge were blossoming in her brother under her careful tending. She expected that if it hadn't been for her countless, undefined years of experience on him, she would've been quickly surpassed.

(She thought she Remembered more, these days. Maybe she would even Remember where it all came from. How she got … well, _here.)_

And she watched as he grew, as Wolf and as Maes, and she watched as he learned. As he began to see the rot coming in, follow the smell of disease. And everyday that he lost a little more of his innocence, she cursed herself for being thankful.

Because innocents died. _Especially _in Amestris.

* * *

She was sixteen and her brother eleven when Maes dressed in his slightly dirtied school uniform and made the military _dance._

She realized, only months later – after they had returned with emancipation forms in hand – that she hadn't been worried. The military was nothing; it was the beasts pulling the strings that were dangerous.

And any belated worry dissolved, because they were _free._

Lauren Hughes was in charge of her brother, no one knew of the deaths and disposals of The Man and The Woman, and her brother was good enough to lie successfully to the military at 11.

They were going to _survive._

And, maybe, even … maybe even _live._

* * *

Between her careful construction and sale of pottery and wares – alchemy disguised as honest work – Raina began to write.

She _had_ to write.

She Remembered how much sway a handful of words hold. How books, ideas, _concepts_ spread like wildfire, and just as devastating. And Maes was … her brother was wise beyond his years because of her words, her ideas – what she Knew.

But the man who needed it. The man with artfully disarrayed hair and stitching on the back of his gloves, _he_ was not wiser. And wisdom would be the only way she could …

Help him, she supposed. Help him save everyone.

Help him save her brother. Her family.

So she wrote. For the man with the tilt of Xing in his eyes and the charm of snakes lurking behind his teeth. She wrote for him.

* * *

Her brother grew up too quickly.

Years passed, giving him everything she could. Everything and anything to make him happy, make him wise. Make him prepared and capable. Everything and anything – for him.

And she Knew, because she had cursed him, that he would join the military.

Go to war, a war that was just genocide paraded as just.

And she couldn't stop him. But she could _help_ him. Do it right.

So when he was turning 17, and she had lived 7,989 days, she filled out the forms he needed to enlist, leaving a space left for his signature on the dotted line.

* * *

Despite becoming an adult herself, becoming mature in the eyes of society, she never really considered … _love_ for herself. She had one goal in life, and that night was years away.

But when a polite, steel spined young woman applied to work in her shop, a Memory sparked.

_Gracia._

She wasn't really living, only fighting. But her brother … her little Wolf wasn't the same.

And she did like the idea of being an aunt.

* * *

On the day that her brother turned nineteen, Raina bakes a small cupcake and settles in the back of her shop after closing. Sits down, ignoring the dust and dirt on the floor, and pulls out a candle.

And she swallows, gripping a match. She inhales, closing her eyes, and presses her palms together – the match gripped awkwardly between her two thumbs and pointer fingers.

The sound and light of the match flaring to life startles her eyes open, and she can only stare as the fire she created without a circle burned down to her fingers.

* * *

On the day that her brother turned twenty, Raina got a letter – a letter coded down to the color of the ink – about a certain Flame Alchemist and his potential. About the good heart under all the cinders and the aspirations they shared.

It was a promise to come home soon, and to figure out a way to drag the man of cinders and ashes along with him.

She smiled, glad that she hadn't interfered too much.

They deserved to have each other, her little Wolf and their country's Flame.

* * *

With her brother home, the relationship between him and Gracia flourished. Raina watched on with quiet joy.

Because she was afraid, when she told her brother to cleave himself into two, that she had destroyed his future. That the cost of saving him would be erasing his future.

But war is a good excuse for cynicism and unknown skills to come to light, and part of their love for each other – Gracia and her brother – was how they discovered more and more about the other each day.

Maybe, just maybe, she did the right thing.

* * *

Years passed, plans were carefully laid. And written.

_A Perspective on Government_ was the first crack in the wall, the beginning of the flood. It was every class she had ever taken on governments, every story she ever heard about politics and leaders. It was every lesson her parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts had ever given her. It was political theories and debates and years and years of history that had already happened and had yet to come and it was _everything._ Everything she could give.

She signed it _Thomas R. Mason_, a defiance against The Man, who loved his country, and a nod to the Hero, who died for his people.

Her little Wolf thought that the 'r' was a nod to her chosen name, but it wasn't the case. It was a nod to the man who would one day revolutionize everything. The one who the book was _really_ for.

And when the State caught on, realizing just what she had published, she relished the gossip she heard in the shop. The soldiers and their families that frequented her store were loose with their lips as they bemoaned and denied and condemned, and all she could think was that it was _working._

No one suspected the hardworking and loyal soldier or his slow, uneducated sister.

And when _A Perspective _was banned, Raina threw herself even further into part two.

* * *

When Raina wrote _An Understanding of Power_ she knew she was taking a gamble. That once was a quirk and twice is the beginning of a pattern. That once another book came out, the efforts to find Thomas R. Mason would double, tripple. That she would have to be even more paranoid and vigilant than ever.

Then she realized that she had to, was _obligated _to.

And with only a twinge of reluctance, she allowed her little Wolf to add a preface.

It wasn't for her, after all.

* * *

Somewhere along the line, when her brother turned twenty-five and became an engaged man with a wife that really _knew_ him, Raina forgot that she was growing herself.

That she was thirty, and running her own shop. That she was a blacklisted writer with a cult following, and to this day no one alive knew the color of her eyes.

And she realized that she had never been thirty, Before. That growing old was novel, and strange. That when Truth had -

* * *

When her brother told her about the two boys with the blood of Van Hohenheim in their veins and the wrath of Truth crashed down on their heads, she _Remembered._

She had Gracia watch the shop, packed herself a bag and a trunk full of boxes, and took the car keys – only at the last minute remembering to leave a note.

Barely sleeping, powering ahead and hurtling down back roads, she makes it to Resembool as the sun is setting. She turns off her headlights, shoves back the surreality, and alchemizes the back door open.

The house is completely unfamiliar, understandable because in only a couple of months it would be burned to the ground.

She investigates carefully, holding her breath as not to disturb what would become a burned shrine of a children's fear. Of her grandfather and her great uncle's fear. The last residence of Slave 23, of Trisha Elric.

She steels her resolve.

She heads back to the car, unpacks the boxes. Stuffs the car full of books and manuscripts and journals, grabbing knick knacks and photographs and jewelry. She Remembers as best she can every regret her Grandpa had ever expressed about the fire they had set, and gathered the stuffed animals and the pictures of her great grandmother. Their first transmutations and Trisha Elric's shawls and Van Hohenheim's old jacket.

And she puts it all in the trunk, slamming it shut.

* * *

She put up the symbol in her shop when she had first opened the Timber Wolf, even though she hadn't fully really realized why until she Remembered more.

She was hoping, maybe, that … maybe one day her grandpa would walk in, dragged in by her great uncle. That she would be able to hear the creak of his limbs, the towering feeling of being beside his height. That with her great uncle, she may be able to even look at eyes like hers. That … that maybe she could see that she wasn't the only bit of gold in this world.

Instead, she attracted the attention of Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist.

When he walked in, only years of experience hiding her emotions stopped her from gasping aloud, drawing undue attention to herself.

His eyes on hers, thought … they _burned._

She can still feel them on her after he leaves.

* * *

Raina has counted 11,472 days when 'Maes and Gracia' became 'Maes and Gracia Hughes' – and when they do she can't help but think that the tolling of the wedding bells sounded more like death knolls.

But she puts on a smile, and distracts herself with food and cake and the eyes of the future Fuhrer President on hers. Distracts herself with the codes and the phrases and the tests they throw at each other, taking in each other's wit.

No wonder Grandpa always respected the man, even if her great uncle never seemed to be able to say anything about him without the word 'bastard' thrown into the mix.

And after the ceremony and the first dance, Mustang extends a hand to her and she can't do anything but smile and _dance._

And when it was time for toasts, she turns up Lauren full force and trusts her brother and sister-in-law to be able to tell the genuine from the act.

"Love is hard," She starts, looking down at notecards that are actually completely blank. "And love is hard when you do it alone. So, I am happy that my brother and my new sister do not have to love alone, and I want them to always remember that love is the only truth we have."

She looks up at her brother, locking eyes – his as green as grass and hers as false as a lie – and she packs as much truth in as she can, in that one look.

"And I want you to remember that the words we give to the ones we love are nothing compared to the sacrifices we give, the actions we take."

She gets a polite applause, after that. Pitying. But Maes? Mustang and Hawkeye?

They got it.

* * *

When Uncle Ed is twelve and her brother is twenty-seven and her grandpa is a suit of armor with the soul of an eleven year old boy bonded to it, the Fullmetal Alchemist earns his title and becomes the youngest state alchemist in history.

Truth, is she so glad that Mustang fixed the no-age-limit thing when he took over.

And Raina is thirty-two when Aunt Elicia is born, and she becomes her Aunt Elicia's Aunt Raina.

(Timelines and families and family timelines are _weird.)_

When her little Wolf names her niece and her aunt for her, calling her Elicia Regina Hughes, she thinks that she might cry. But she doesn't, not yet.

She hasn't cried in her 11,740 days. She isn't going to start now.

* * *

When her brother comes to her with his manuscript for _The Scapegoat_ and a request for her to edit and review, she is bowled over.

And so, so _very_ proud.

The book is everything she taught him, but _more. _It is _his_ ideas, _his _perspective. Everything she has taught him but _expanded._

She gave him everything and multiplied it tenfold.

She forces him to sign her copy, burying it carefully in her great grandfather's collection for safekeeping. But if she could, she'd shout it from the rooftops.

That her brother had surpassed her, become _better._

That her brother was going to _live._

* * *

Maes hears about her grandpa's house burning down and confronts her.

"How do you know?" He demands, focused like an angry Auntie Winry. "You knew those boys would burn their house down – that's why you took their books, their keepsakes. You knew I would become a soldier, that I would need to know everything you taught me. You _knew_ that I would try to overthrow the government."

How does she tell the truth? That she _doesn't know?_

That whenever she thinks about it the Memories slip away?

"I won't lie to you," She finally says.

"When we were kids, you used alchemy to burn Thomas and Rubia to nothing," Her brother switches tactics. "Why?"

"Because I couldn't let them take you from me, split us apart."

"_Why?_"

"Because I do everything I do so you make it to thirty," Raina forced herself not to shout – Remembering the haunted look on Uncle Ed's face and the sad smile on Aunt Elicia's and the way that Grandpa would talk about the man who her brother was to become. "I realized that I doomed you. So you _will_ make it to thirty. And then forty, then fifty and sixty and to a hundred if I can manage it."

And Truth be damned if she can't.

"When did you …?" He started to ask, studying her eyes – the secret, facade, that she still to this day has never revealed to him. Because she _can't._ "When did you decide I was worth more than your own ambitions, life?"

"You _are_ my ambition, my life," Raina corrected him, squeezing his hand. Her family, the one she loved first, would never again be hers. All she had was a dead man walking – a dead man who she just wanted to save. "Don't you forget that."

* * *

When Raina drops by one day to give Gracia a new pie dish, she has to force herself to freeze and not react at the resonance of a clap and the crackle of a transmutation – not to attack back when a spear pulled from her brother's couch is pointed straight at her neck.

"Who are you?"

(… In the safety of her own mind, she could very much admit that Uncle Ed was short as hell.)

And _Truth_ it was weird seeing him do alchemy.

"Brother!"

And … and there was Grandpa.

"My name is Lauren," She speaks slowly, trying not to cry and hoping it came off as her being scared and not emotionally attached to a suit of armor. "Lauren Hughes."

Her grandpa shifted, standing with a creaking groaning sound that was forigen and strange and sounded like home, and it was probably a good thing she had a spear to her throat because she wanted to do nothing more than throw her arms around his middle, to hug her grandpa.

But she had to settle for the incredibly relieving and nervewreck feeling of having her doting Uncle Ed in child form stare her down the shaft of his spear –

With his _golden eyes._

"Are you Mr. Hughes' sister?" Grandpa asked her, his voice too-young and too-wary. Her Grandpa didn't sound like that, and she latched onto that one detail. A lifeline.

"Yes," She nodded as much as she could with a blade at her neck. "Is Gracia here?"

"Sorry, Ms. Hughes," Grandpa – Al, _Al_ – stepped forward and pulled Uncl- _Ed's_ spear away from her neck, allowing her to relax. "She said she needed to pick Elicia up from a friend's."

Raina just nodded again, not trusting her voice.

"So what're you doing here?" Ed asked her rudely, and she had to quench down a smile at his petulance.

"I could ask you the same," Raina replied rather than rile him up further. "This is, after all, my brother's house."

"Mr. and Mrs. Hughes are allowing us to stay with them," Al replied, and Raina sent him a warm smile at the sound of his uncertainty. "Why are you here, if I may ask?"

Raina reflexively held up the package, wrapped in tissue paper and string as it was, before setting it on the table by the door. "Just dropping off a new pie tin for Gracia. I'll be on my way, I suppose."

"Wait a sec," Ed's too-young voice cut her off, and as she turned away from the door she was yanked down to his level (rather far) and inches away from her Uncle's Scary Face – though not as effective on a twelve year old.

He studies her, and she forces herself not to react. Not to do as her family trained her and pin the brat – her _Uncle_ – to the ground Great Grandma Izumi style. She settles on a bland face common to Raina, if not unusual on Lauren.

"You look … you look familiar," Ed finally says, even as Al worries audibly behind him.

Well, if anyone was to know exactly how much Trisha and Al was in her face – as she was so often told – then it would be Uncle Ed. But between Grandma Mei and Mom's Xingese blood and her hiding Great-Grandpa Hohenheim's eyes, she wasn't worried.

_Too _worried, that is.

"You've met my brother, you know." Lauren answers, straightening up and forcing Ed to let go. "I should be going."

And she made it all the way back to her flat above her shop before her legs gave out under her and she laughed and _laughed _until the pricking of tears faded from her eyes_._

* * *

"You're quiet."

Raina looked up from where she was balancing her books, cocking her head at the Colonel dressed casually across from her. She spared him a smile.

"Oh?" She went back to calculating. "I didn't realize that I was ever loud."

"You're quiet in more ways than one," He answers, gaze drifting to check the door. "What's wrong, Princess?"

(Oh, she was royal alright. In the Before, she was in the line of succession and everything, though not exactly close to the top. The nickname was funnier because he didn't know how accurate it was.)

"I'm worried about something that I know is coming," She decides to answer half-truthfully, mindful of her words. "And there's nothing I can do to stop it, only mitigate it."

Roy's gaze is sharp on hers, and she pushes back the feeling of guilt that comes with eye contact. The guilt that comes when someone sees green when there should be gold. Dad's gold, Grandpa's gold. Slave 23's gold.

_Xerxes_ gold.

"I'm here for you," Is all Roy can say as the door chimes open.

It's all he needed to.

* * *

Lauren Hughes is thirty-four when the Elric Brothers break into and destroy Laboratory Five.

Raina has lived 12,546 days when her Grandpa and Uncle discover the truth about Philosopher Stones.

Raina Mei Elric lived 12,553 days and 23 years when her chosen brother, Maes Hughes – her childhood hero – gets shot in a phone booth by Envy, the Elric family version of the boogeyman.

But as she promised herself – the _world_ – all those years ago, Maes Hughes was going to make it to thirty.

So when she sees Envy walk away with the gun that shot her brother and Gracia's face, she waits only until she can no longer feel the disgusting pulse of the homunculus before she peels out of her hiding spot and walks over to the body on the ground.

Lauren's footsteps stop, and Maes opens his eyes.


End file.
